Chapter 52

After dealing with Zabuza, we went to find Kakashi and Sakura. Sasuke kept bugging me about the sword I was carrying over my shoulder, but I didn't feel like talking about it.

Sakura was sitting over Kakashi, her hands pumping out green chakra to fix his wounds. The jounin was resting against a tree. Nearby were the bodies of the Demon Brothers, their chests caved in and bloody.

"Where's Zabuza?" Kakashi asked.

"I took care of him," I told him coldly. I still had a death grip on the massive sword I had taken from Zabuza's corpse.

"You defeated Zabuza?" he asked incredulously. Sakura paused in her treatment, too shocked to concentrate on the technique as she also stared at me.

"Sasuke flushed out his clones and then I took care of the real one." I neglected to mention that Haku's failed hunter-nin ruse was the reason why I had the opportunity to land the killing blow on the missing-nin. It would have been incredibly difficult to preform two separate, complicated techniques simultaneously. But when Haku gave me the opportunity, I killed Zabuza. I killed him.

"That explain why his clone disappeared..." Kakashi began, explaining what happened in this part of the forest. Zabuza's water clone was using Sakura as a hostage so that Kakashi couldn't fight back. Gozu and Meizu had played with the jounin, slowly inflicting wounds and telling him how all of his students would die. When Sakura was suddenly released, Kakashi killed the brothers.

"I'm done, Sensei. How do you feel?" Sakura asked.

"Ah, much better, thank you, Sakura." Kakashi stood up. He looked at me then he looked at Sasuke. "Are you guys okay?"

Sasuke mumbled, "Yeah."

"I'll be fine," I answered.

"Well, let's keep going then." Kakashi's words were the last thing any of us said until we reached Tazuna's home.

That evening, I sat on the roof of Tazuna's house. It was nice to just take a break and let my hair down. I wasn't wearing the stupid mask. I was enjoying the feeling of wind against my face. It smelled like ocean. In the distance, I could see the bridge he was building. It vaguely reminded me of the freeways of my old life. It looked kind of pretty in the sunset.

"Is this seat taken?" Sakura asked, suddenly appearing next to me.

"What do you want, Sakura?" I wasn't really in the mood to talk with anyone at the moment.

The girl looked like she wanted to punch me for a second. She slowly lowered her fist and breathed deeply. "I just wanted to say thank you for saving us."

"What are you talking about?"

Sakura looked far away into the setting sun. "I...I couldn't do anything. And Kakashi-sensei, he said that he would protect me. I was so scared. They said that anything Kakashi did to them, they would do to me." She gulped and continued to look into the distance. "He just stood there and shrugged it off like it was nothing. Even when...he was bleeding so much..."

The girl broke into tears. "Oh, god, what do I do?"

I gingerly put my hand on her shoulder. "But he's okay thanks to you, right?"

"I thought he was going to die. I thought I was going to die..." She continued to cry inconsolably.

I had no idea what to say. I squeezed her shoulder gently. "But you're okay now. Everything is fine."

"I wanted...I wanted Sasuke to save me. I want him to tell me things are okay. Why aren't you Sasuke?! Why...?" Tears continued to stream from her eyes as she yelled at me. She stared straight at me. "Haru...did you know this would happen to us?"

I withdrew my hand. I couldn't look her in the eyes as I said, "I knew we would be attacked. I thought it might be Momochi Zabuza, but other than that..."

Sakura leered at me hatefully through her tears. "I wish I never met you. I...I can't even hate you. I want to hate you but I can't. Every time you could have just told me to go away, you taught me how to be a better ninja instead. Why? Is it because you knew we'd have to fight for our lives against insane missing-nin? Is that why?" she screamed hysterically. If anyone else could hear, they weren't making themselves known.

"I don't know what will happen in the future, Sakura. The only thing I know is that there are a lot of things that might happen. A million things that might be true. That's why I...why we need to be stronger. Because I don't know what will happen."

Sakura seemed to sober up a bit. She chuckled and asked, "What about me and Sasuke? Is he ever going to..."

"That's up to you and him."

"You make it seem so easy. You would train every single day after Academy. And that's in addition to the medical program. Did you know that Ino only joined that stupid class because she has a crush on you?" I ignored Sakura's question. She continued, "But you were too busy with your ninja training to notice. What is it all for, Haru?"

I sighed and pushed my bangs up, running my fingers through my hair. "I'm just afraid, Sakura. I'm afraid of things that I hope never ever happen."

I must have frightened her because she said nothing. All I could hear was her uneven breathing, as she was still recovering from her crying, and the ocean wind.

"I thought it would be easier. I never thought that I would have this much trouble...Are we supposed to feel guilt when we kill someone?" I asked the girl.

"I don't know. Do you feel guilty, Haru? You know Zabuza was a terrible person. If anyone deserved to die, it was him."

"I don't feel guilty. I feel like I should feel guilty but I don't. That's what I feel guilty about." I stood up and walked toward the edge of the roof. The sun had finally set and the last tinges of red were fading from the clouds.

"Where are you going, Haru?" the pink-haired girl asked.

"Training."

I waited in the darkness of night. The moonlight filtered through the trees piecemeal and thin onto the clearing where I stood. I wore my mask under my hood and the Kubikiribocho on my back.

"You're late," I said as I saw the 'hunter-nin' walk into the clearing across from me. He was wearing his own Kirigakure ANBU mask.

"How did you know I was coming?" Haku asked. Senbon protruded from his fists through his fingers.

"I just had a feeling." I readied my own kunai, taking a combat stance. "Far be it for me to deny you your revenge."

"You don't know anything!" he shouted, flinging a handful of needles at my head. I avoided but only barely. I felt my mask with my hand, noting the two deep gouges his senbon had made in the ceramic. It was a wonder the mask hadn't shattered completely.

"Fuck, he's fast." I threw the ruined mask away. I walked closer, kunai in hand, grinning crazily. "Do you really think you can take me down?"

"You took everything from me! I have nothing left..." Haku said, faltering under my killing intent. But then he took a combat stance, steeling himself to face me. "If I can't do this, then I truly am worthless. That is why I will kill you!"

Then we clashed, metal grinding against metal at high speeds, ringing out like a staccato melody. I laughed as I deflected Haku's senbon with my kunai. "Is that the best you can do?"

"How? You're just a child! How can you be so strong?" he asked as he struggled to keep my kunai from pushing him back.

Slowly, I started to increase the viciousness of my counterattacks. "Just a kid? You're one to talk, Girly." Despite the older boy being significantly taller than me, he was losing ground whenever he tried to block my kunai. Eventually he saw the futility of trying to attack me in a straight taijutsu fight and hopped backward, beginning a series of hand seals.

"Thousands Flying Water Needles of Death!" he screamed. I jumped up, bouncing from tree to tree to avoid the deadly machinegun spray of water projectiles that came from the darkness behind Haku.

"I bet that technique takes a lot of chakra when you don't have a convenient water source nearby," I taunted, appearing above him.

"Shut up!" he growled, uncharacteristically angry. He screamed through his mask and encased himself in a dome of ice. Faster than I could blink, dozens of massive ice spears shot from the ice shield and ran through my crow clone which burst into a scattering of birds.

"Impressive. That would hurt if it hit, I suppose." I dropped down from the tree I had been observing from. For the first time, I was looking down at Haku. He was on his knees, out of breath and exhausted. Every tree in a fifteen meter radius around him was nothing more than wet splinters.

"Why? Why don't you just kill me now? Aren't you a genjutsu user? That's what you used on Zabuza, isn't it?" he asked, still desperately making hand seals with one hand. His other hand was holding himself up off the ground.

I formed a Rasengan. Without looking, I rammed it into the ice mirror forming behind me, shattering it completely. "I have no reason to kill you," I said without feeling.

Haku's voice was filled with despair when he asked, "Then why did you come if you knew I wanted to kill you?"

"Like I said, if you want to get revenge, that's fine with me. Do whatever you want. Try to kill me. I don't care. Just don't give me any bullshit about wanting to die. If you're going to tell me I took away your reason for living, then find a new one." I gripped the handle of the sword I had taken from the one person in this world Haku lived for. "Find something you believe in and fight for that. That's the one thing I'll ever tell anyone else to do."

"What is your reason for living?" he whispered, his emotionless mask staring at me.

"I just don't like other people deciding my future for me."

I turned to leave. I could still hear Haku sobbing as I left, "...Zabuza..."